How to take a Team Photo

Taking your camera to a kids sports event usually results in a series of photos that are, well, average. With a little bit of planning though you can take an idea with you and get some shots that everyone will want a copy of. This group shot is composed by featuring the main character (in this case maybe the team captain) dominating the image while the other members still being shown clearly. This style of photograph you will see a lot in newspapers,magazines and wedding shots (where the bride and groom are prominent and the rest of the bridal party are looking on).This is a simply image for you to achieve.

Method:

1. Place the main subject in the left or right of your image depending on the angle of the sun. Note the long shadows in this photo! This image was captured early in the morning which is a great time to take photos as the light is warmer, at face level (no unsightly shadows on the face forming due to sun being too high above) and not as harsh.

2. If it is easier for you to frame the shot and you have the time you can use a tripod but for this shot there is really no need.

3. Get up high, stand on an eski or seat. Make sure you crop close to the main subject for greater impact. When using a wide angle lens it is important to move close to the subject to get the full affect whilst still capturing the background. A mistake people new to wide angle photography make is to capturing far too much unwanted background areas.

4. Set your camera to aperture priority and set the f stop to f11, this will be ideal to keep everyone in focus and no movement blur. A large f stop such as f11 creates a deeper depth of field so that both the subject at the front and back are still in focus. If you wanted to only have the subject at the front in focus and the others blurred then you would use a f stop of 4 or less. Check your shutter speed, on a well lit morning it would probably be about 1/125 sec, if its any less than this you may struggle to get a sharp image so just take your f stop back one stop to f8.

5. Props can be important in photographs even if its to give the subject something to do with their hands. But in this case its important that the prop used is related to the story. Also in this image not only the soccer ball is used but the goal net is framed subtly in the background without taking over. I like to keep the backgrounds very simply so it doesn't distract from the subject.

6. So the main advise I can say to all images you are about to be captured is to check your composition and imagine it as the finished product before you hit the shutter button.